TRAVEL GUIDE: What To Do And Eat In Yogyakarta ‘Jogja’ – Our 6D5N Itinerary Under $700!

We all have those days, where we’d wish we could put down our books and pick up our luggage to fly somewhere we’ve never been before. Maybe you’ve got the same criteria too – Somewhere not overly popular or expensive, but packed with once-in-a-lifetime activities and stunning landscapes to shake up that #IGlife.

Two weeks notice, a willing friend, plus an AirAsiaGo steal at $380 for return flights + hotel, and we are ready for our 6D5N trip.

Destination:Yogyakarta “Jogja”, Central Java, Indonesia.

“TLDR; I’d say the trip was quite affordable, safe enough for 2 girls to travel on their own (using us as a case study), and great for those who want a taste of adventure plus photos to proof, without breaking too much of a sweat. Highlights include temple-running, volcano climbing, cave tubing, abseiling down a 60-meter sinkhole and watching the sunrise from the renown UNESCO Borobudur temple.”

If you’re already convinced and planning to head there for the first time, this is for you. A breakdown of our 6D5N itinerary, including prices per pax and notable first-hand information, covering almost all the tourist attractions that you can google.

After setting our watches back an hour upon touching down, we met up with two local Instagrammers who have kindly offered to be our guides for the day. After a short 5-minutes car ride to our hotel for check-in, we were ready for lunch. In the same way that Singaporeans would immediately think of ‘Maxwell chicken rice’, our local friends recommended us ‘Gudeg Yu Djum‘, which serves Gudeg kering.

I’d recommend it if you don’t mind a sweet-savoury combination as your main dish, and one portion is definitely quite shareable between two small eaters.

Nasi Gudeg

Gudeg Yu Djum

Then on to our first attraction – Candi Prambanan.

The first thing you’ll note about Indonesian attraction prices is that the price difference for locals and tourists is huge!

For locals, it’s IDR 30,000 and tourists, IDR 234,000 per entry.

However, the second thing to note about Indonesian prices is that there’s always an “alternative” price – highly discouraged of course. Without getting too much into detail, I’ll simply say that we managed to gain entry for IDR 100,000 per pax instead.

Signboard for local prices

Prambanan Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is built in the 10th century and is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It is a complex made of 240 temples, the tallest being the central building which is 47-meters-high.

For breakfast, we grabbed a steamed chocolate bun (IDR 5000) from a nearby petrol kiosk and set off on a 1-hour journey north to Mount Merapi – an active volcano.

When you arrive at the base camp, there will be several jeep rental companies that you can approach, and prices typically range from IDR 250,000 for 45-minutes to IDR 450,000 for a 90-minutes tour (Alternatively, you can find tours which do pick-up and drop-off at your hotel from IDR 260,000).

Our driver recommended Belantara Adventure, as he knows them personally, and managed to help negotiate for a 90-minutes Jeep Tour (IDR 350,000). In exchange, I said I’d recommend their services to you all, so here’s our receipt for future references.

All the tours will take you on a similar route: Museum Sisa Hartaku – Batu Alien – Bunker.

Museum Sisa Hartaku, translated from My Remaining Treasure Museum, was a house affected by the last Merapi eruption on 5 November 2010. Amongst the possessions covered in volcanic ash, there was a clock on the wall with its hands melted into its face – forever recording the exact moment in which the lava hit this village.

Batu Alien (Alien stone) was the most notable stone hurled out of the volcano during the 2010 eruption. A few steps away, you’ll see Mount Merapi in the distance and peer down the edge of the cliff to see one of the biggest rivers around Merapi.

Last stop, Bunker Kaliadem.

Now unused, the bunker was built as a safety bunker to protect the locals from the eruption dust. Ironically enough, two were found dead inside from the 2006 eruption, trapped by 2 meters of debris.

Truth be told, we weren’t actually there to admire the sites. So if you’re up for some pretty good photo-taking spots, I’d recommend going straight ahead from where we’re standing in the above picture, where the Merapi summit will be less than 10 km away.

Alternatively, when you drive back down from the bunker, you’ll pass by an off-track area on the left, and this was where we took most of our shots (courtesy of our Jeep driver, whom I must say went the extra mile or squatting / hiding behind bushes to get that perfect shot! It was quite a scene, haha. Because of this, our 90-minute tour actually became closer to a 3-hour tour.)

For lunch, we ordered a bowl of Bakso from a local pushcart by our Jeep rental – one of the most popular street food in Indonesia.

Then off we went to our second stop of the day – Bukit Bintang, translated as starry hill, to watch the sunset.

It was a gorgeous sight, watching the fog roll over the hills before the pink-orange rays peeked through, ending with the finale of a star-filled night sky.

Alun-alun Kidul (Southern City Square)­ is the open backyard of Yogyakarta Palace. Here, there were 3 notable activities to do:

Rent a pedal car decorated with colourful LED lights and equipped with a 10,000 watts sound system with LCD screen to pedal along to. Price ranges from IDR 200,000 to IDR 400,000 for one round.

A game known as masangin, which stands for “masuk dua beringin” (entering two banyan trees). According to this myth, if you managed to walk between the twin banyan trees planted in the city square with your eyes blindfolded, your wish will come true.

Try some local street food.

Naturally, being too tired from the day, we opted for the third option and decided to try out some street food that we’ve never heard of before. Of this, we got some ‘starchy balls’ as I’d like to call them, and crêpes for supper.

Located 1.5 hours from central Yogyakarta, you must arrive at Goa Jomblang before 9:45am, as there is only one tour a day with only25 people allowed. It’s recommended that you head there even earlier than call time, or book a tour beforehand, and you’ll receive a queue number indicating when you’re next to be lowered into the sinkhole.

After being strapped into a harness in a sitting position, you’ll be lowered 60m off the cliff, 2 persons at a time. The whole experience isn’t scary at all – promise!

When everyone has reached the bottom, we began the second part of the journey through a tunnel that connects to the final part, Grubug Cave – the central cave.

This is where you’ll get to see heavenly light beaming through the hole at noon, hitting the massive white rock behind me in the picture.

A breath-taking experience that I’ll definitely never forget.

Lunch provided!

Second stop – Goa Pindul for cave tubing!

We paid IDR 150,000 per pax (quite sure it’s the tourist price), and had a private tour guide who helped carry our floats and point out details along the trip.

There were 3 parts to the cave tubing, which we traveled to and from on the back of a truck.

On this ‘tour’, we tubed through a bat cave, rapid falls (which Vanessa fell into! Our tour guide laughed because she was apparently the first person who ever did) and jumped off a 10-meter platform.

When we were absolutely exhausted and done, it was time to head for dinner at Abhayagiri Restaurant.

With an hour set back from Singapore, the sun is usually fully up by 5:45am. For those wanting to catch the sunrise, this would mean getting to where you need to be by 5:15am latest.

Sunrise view from Mangunan Fruit Gardens

More morning light at Hutan Pinus Imogiri (Pine Forest)

This next stop – Bukit Mojo – wasn’t in our original itinerary. However, after location stalking through Instagram, we’re glad we managed to squeeze it in.

This is basically a spot just for photos with several ‘photo attractions’. Only the bridge to nowhere is included in the IDR 4,000 entrance fee, and the rest are individual payments made to the person managing each exhibition.

We had originally planned to go sandboarding and ATV driving, but you’ll soon realise what a terrible idea this sounds when you’re faced with the blazing afternoon sun.

Nevertheless, we braved the heat and headed to Gumuk Pasir Parangkusmo, which is actually a large area of sand right next to a carpark…

Last stop of the day – Paralayang.

Nothing too special, but a simple view of the coastal line. Here, we simply enjoyed a drink and a bite before we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Day 5 – Tuesday

03:30 – 04:30

Drive to Borobudur Temple

Driver for the day: IDR 400,000 (~S$40)

04:30 – 06:00

Watch sunrise + take photos before the temple is opened to the public

Sunrise pass: IDR 450,000 (~S$45)(includes tea/coffee, light snack, entrance to Borobudur Temple from 4.30am – before it is open to the public)

08:30 – 10:00

Drive to Air Terjun Sidoharjo

(Google Maps coordinates are wrong! You have to go downslope, instead of up)

We saved the best for the last day – sunrise at Borobudur Temple in exchange for a 3 am start.

Borobudur Temple, a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple, is the world’s largest Buddhist temple. With our sunrise entrance fee of IDR 450,000, we were given a torch light and early access up the 9 platforms to catch a glimpse of the rising sun.

After taking plenty of shots and videos (video coming soon…) of this UNESCO site, complimentary light snacks, plus an episode of me leaving my cardigan somewhere up there and them having to search (I’d imagine) around all 504 Buddha statues before they finally found it – we set off to another Instagram find – Air Terjun Sidoharjo.

I won’t hide the truth. This place was beyond hard to find.

Not only were the Google maps coordinates very inaccurate, when we did manage to ask the locals and arrived there, we still had to pay the most random parking fee in this forest and trek another 100 meters on foot before finding the place.

It was an experience, no doubt, but according to our driver – there are better (and more easily accessible) waterfalls than this.

Disclaimer: Hello, can I also mention that if you squint really hard, you can tell that the water is actually green, but ’cause I’m rather okay at Lightroom, I made it blue.

After an icy swim in the waterfall, we headed to Kalibiru National Park.

Similar to Bukit Mojo, this place was mainly for its photo spots, as well as a high ropes course (IDR 35,000).

It almost felt like a *very mini* theme park and is well worth the travel.

Lastly, we ended with souvenir shopping near Jalan Malioboro (bought freshly-made bakpia) and ending the night with dinner at Sate Samirono.

Luggage List (No checked-in):

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Things To Note:

Wet weather period (beware!!) We went during May, and most of our sunrise / sunset shots as well as a few activities were affected due to fogginess or the ground being quite slippery.

Hotel: Although our hotel is a 5-minutes drive from the JOG Airport, it’s not centrally located in Yogyakarta, so bear that in mind if you’re looking to book the same. I’d still recommend it, as we didn’t have much time to travel outside anyway, since we were mostly exhausted at the end of each day, and had to wake up super early the next few mornings.

2 thoughts on “TRAVEL GUIDE: What To Do And Eat In Yogyakarta ‘Jogja’ – Our 6D5N Itinerary Under $700!”

Hi Anshuk! Thanks for stopping by. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend my driver as it was a last-minute booking since we didn’t think we needed a private driver until we got there. There are plenty of others that I have linked to, however. Please share with us yours when you’ve headed over! 🙂